Poolfrog

He's also physically robust, whereas Lennon - although a decent prospect - is very lightweight. Wright Phillips is also easily knocked off the ball - and also couldn't cross if his life depended on it

I don't think that saying someone is slow (he is), past it (he is), old (he is) amounts to hyperbole or exagerration. Just a statement of fact. Plus the fact that being called a tool by someone who's that irrational he can get angry over someone else's point of view isn't really something that I will lose sleep over - trust me. And if I had a pound for every time someone on here has excused a below par perfomance from good old Robbie on the grounds that he's returning from injury (isn't he always?) and needs games to build up his sharpness (yawn!), I'd probably be able to afford a Koptalk Gold Club subscription!

That Robbie's a right old card! I think Pennant's as good as any of the likely candidate's for the England right wing slot, so let's hope he continues to progress, although I have to say that, apart from the excellent run for Crouch's goal, he didn't have the best of games on Tuesday

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe I said anywhere that I hated Fowler. My point is that, for no obvious reason, he gets tolerance from fans when he plays poorly, which is quite often ("all God needs is a few games to get his sharpness back" etc etc,) while other squad players get a good monstering if they have one poor game - Kromkamp being the current scapegoat. With regard to this I expressed my opinion that he can't possibly by any stretch of the imagination be as good as he was 5 years ago, now at the age of 31, when he was poor then and we let him go. Whereas there are some people on here who somehow compare him with Bergkamp and his role at Arsenal, despite the clear evidence that his legs have long gone, and others have even suggested he should be in England's squad. It is this unswerving blind faith in a player who is by any definition way past his best that I have queried, while other players in the squad are treated with absolutely zero tolerance. And guess what? - I didn't call anyone a tool, berk or clueless or tell them to eff off in any of this. Is that where I'm going wrong?

By entering into proper debate, I presume you mean agreeing with everything you say. All I've been doing is expressing my opinion - without using insults and personal abuse. If you don't agree, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion.

Fowler is God - end of

After reading the foregoing mature debate see now that I was wrong all the time. Fowler is God. I think Steve McLaren should pick him for England's next game when Rooney's suspended. I mean, it's obvious that he's the most natural finisher in the history of football. I see him now as a Bergkamp style player, dropping deep and knocking devastating through balls into the channels for the runners - and stealing into the box and getting on the end of big Crouchie's knock-downs. I don't know about you - and I don't want to appear to be too critical - I think he might need some more games to get the old sharpness back but, hey, who's counting? Let's be thankful we fought off all Europe's big boys when the legend realised he was too big a fish in Man City's pond. Remind me - did I say that Fowler is God? If I didn't then I do now. I don't know what came over me before, so I apologise

Yes I laughed my a*** off at that point and my couldn't bring myself to explain to my daughter what was so funny when she emerged from the kitchen. But didn't he actually say "...Benitez does like a big one up the middle..."? I know what you mean. They often say someone was only just offsice - as if that makes it less offside I've never liked Tyldesley since he said once on air that he used to be a Man Utd supporter as a kid - like he isn't anymore!

Quite so. I did see the source of the statistic a while back but I can't remember where it was. But when you think that we kept 33 clean sheets in all competitions - 22 in the Prem - it stands to reason that we defend set-pieces well. But, oh no, Andy Gray et al perpetuate the myth that we are dodgy at set-pieces, so it becomes enshrined in folklore. My mates darn sarf where I live have swallowed it hook, line and sinker and mention it to me all the time - so I trot out all the clean sheet stats to no avail

I've no trouble with him being taken out of his box for Carling Cup games, to use his experience with the younger players who will inevitably play in those games. I can even see the point of him being brought on in proper games for a last throw of the dice for 15-20 minutes when we've run out of ideas. What I can't get my head around is this inexplicable belief amongst a number on here that he's somehow a brilliant player who'll do a good job - when he has singularly failed to do so at the top level for 5 years and was offloaded by a poor team - City - and no other club was remotely interested in him, nor would be again if we released him. I suppose it's the emperor's new clothes kind of thing. It's very strange when other squad players get slaughtered for playing no worse than him - but any poor performance by him is automatically excused as his needing "more games" to get his sharpness back (which disappeared circa 2001). It's laughable really.

Because when he finally started to get amongst the goals we were playing rubbish teams with nothing to play for at the end of the season. Still, the good news was that the old fraud wasn't brought on last night.

They give a false impression of a striker's worth if the striker takes them. Reina or the full-backs could probably score 9 out of 10 penalties.

I'm sorry but "...the chavs and utd are looking good from the off..." is a tad over the top. They've played 1 game each (and the chavs didn't look too clever 6 days before in Cardiff) at home against two shocking teams, one of which - Fulham - will be lucky not to be relegated and the other - City - will do well to finish above 15th. Let's keep a sense of proportion.

Does your prediction for Fowler include penalties? Just asking like.

I do so enjoy the mature level of debate on here! Fowler's completely past it. If you think he deserves to be in our first team then you're deluded. He did bugger all against Sheffield except kick the ball in a straight line for once from 12 yards. If he's as good as we can put out up front then we're in big trouble. He hadn't exactly been pulling up trees at Leeds or City and I don't remember us almost being almost thwarted by a late swoop from Barca or Milan when City wanted to offload him. Why do so many people on here lose all sense of proportion when it comes to Fowler and are prepared to put up with performances from him that simply wouldn't be tolerated from other players? This is possibly the first sensible post I've read on here about Fowler. I say the same and I'm told to eff off. It's a funny old world!

That Halifax geezer is a complete and utter t***. He has helped me to decide that I would rather stick pins in my eyeballs than open an account with the Halifax. Why can't the higher-ups in the Halifax see that he would discourage any sane, normal person from investing with them?

I met Pady Power himself when he officially opened a branch near me at the beginning of the year. He's a top bloke.

Not true - the minimum length for a football pitch is 100 yards. The pitch at Anfield used to be 110 yards long, so I imagine it still is. Highbury's metric measurement you quote would also be longer than the minimum requirement, so neither club would require permission - in any case if they didn't fall within the stated parameters for pitch dimensions they would be outside the laws of the game, so would not be allowed to play

He's played 90% of his games on the left wing and even if he did play inside is far too one-footed, greedy and lacking in vision to be an adequate replacement for Bergkamp

Yes the lightweight, injury-prone Rosicky is so brilliant, no-one else was trying to sign him and his value dropped from £18m when Dortmund signed him to £8m in a very short time. And Van Persie plays in an entirley different role to Bergkamp. It's like comparing Harry Kewell with Steven Gerrard. A the end of the day they finished a hefty 15 points behind us and their squad's weaker than last season

Jimmy Carter and David Speedie

So ler's be thankful for small mercies then. Wright Phillips is simply not good enough for us. Ditto Duff

Yes but we all know he won't. I wish I was wrong but I've seen all his games since I went to his debut at Fulham away when he was 17 and he's a very pale shadow of that player. His day has been and gone long since.

Depends how far we go in the Carling Cup I suppose. I can't see him being a first team regular and I suspect he'll only get a start if we have injury problems or Rafa wants to rest players after a dozen games or so.

Fowler for one What everyone seems to have forgotten about the £17m fee Chelsea paid for him is that it wasn't an indication of how highly he was rated, it was merely the buy-out fee in his contract - set so unrealistically high as to be off-putting. But along came Abramovich and they alone were prepared to pay vastly beyond his real market value.